


Genius Skills

by orphan_account



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Attempt at Humor, Crack Treated Seriously, M/M, One Shot, baekluvr69, flash fic turned one shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:34:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27634163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: It's Chanyeol's first night as a babysitter and he really just needs the money to buy Black Ops Cold War. He doesn't expect to meet Baekhyun that night, who had taken a rather different route to procure funds for purchasing the same game.
Relationships: Byun Baekhyun/Park Chanyeol
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9
Collections: the general adventures





	Genius Skills

**Author's Note:**

> I got the flash fic prompt from here https://thejohnfox.com/2016/07/flash-fiction-prompts/  
> "It’s Marnie’s first night as a babysitter, and she’s only an hour in when she hears a window shatter and the alarm go off. Too bad the house is deep in the forest without neighbors."
> 
> It got too long to be a flash fic tho T-T

Chanyeol loved kids. Chanyeol also loved video games. So when his parents told him they weren’t going to buy him Black Ops Cold War, he decided to take matters into his own hands and babysit until he had enough money to purchase it for himself. Which is why he was in the middle of the woods, trying (and failing) to complete his calculus homework while Jaemin slept upstairs. He’d been worried about his first night as a babysitter, but Jaemin was a good kid and, just as his parents had said, slept well and caused no trouble at all. He was basically getting twenty bucks just for giving the kid a microwaved dinner, talking to him a little, and doing his own homework. It was a pretty sweet deal, even if the house was kind of creepy at night. 

Jaemin’s parents were nuts about nature, and Chanyeol didn’t understand it one bit. Why anyone would choose to live here, a mile from civilization and other people, was beyond him. He shuddered a little and moved deeper into the couch as the wind whistled eerily through the branches outside. The numbers 11:45 glared green and digital into his eyes as he stared at the clock, trying to ignore the ominous moving shadows that the leaves cast on the floor in front of him. 

Ok, maybe it wasn’t going _totally_ great. Maybe Chanyeol was a little scared. But only a little! He moved up to close the curtains, so he wouldn’t have to see the shadows anymore, and that’s when he saw something. A figure. Tall. Like a bear? It had flitted by so fast that Chanyeol wasn’t even sure it had been there. Having drawn the curtains shut, he fell back onto the couch. Jaemin’s parents wouldn’t be back till 4 in the morning. They were probably having the time of their lives at whatever party they’d gone to while he was here, pulling the blankets they’d given him over his body and squeezing his eyes shut, too scared to turn off the lights and hoping whatever shadow he’d seen was just his stupid imagination.

Sleep was fitful. Tendrils of exhaustion wrapped around him, but not strongly enough to keep him from tossing and turning, so he just felt frustrated, falling asleep for a bit only to wake again. In his dream, it was pitch black, and there was a sound off to the side like a door creaking. Then, soft noises, like something repeatedly touching a surface, getting closer. Wind whistling, but again, very soft wind that he didn’t quite feel, only hear. A gasp. Something fell, hitting the ground with a thud, and his eyes flew open to meet darkness. Hadn’t he left the light on? His chest felt very tight and like his ribs were collapsing inwards as he turned and peeked over the couch to see what had made the noise, squinting as his eyes focused. 

“What the fuck?!” he squeaked, arms flailing backward and causing him to fall to the hard floor in a panic. His head hit the coffee table and he groaned. The dark figure jumped back with a shriek, it’s hip hitting the kitchen island. God, this was it. Chanyeol’s life was going to end right here, right now, without him even having gotten to do all the things he wanted to do because there was someone in the house and they were going to kill him, probably stab him and watch him bleed to death with a manic grin just like all those horror movies oh god oh no why had he ever agreed to come to this house in the middle of the fucking woods??

Wait, hold on. The dark figure jumped back with a _shriek_? While the unnamed person whimpered, clutching their hip and proceeding to stumble into a chair, Chanyeol crawled over to the wall as fast as possible and hit the light switch. The unnamed person froze. His eyes went wide as he stared at Chanyeol and Chanyeol stared back. He was a man, shorter than him, with thick black hair that fell over his eyes and a black mask covering the lower half of his face; his body obscured in a large grey hoodie. Then he jumped up, brandishing a small knife he’d pulled out of the back pocket of his baggy jeans. 

“I just need to stay here for a bit.” he said, pointing the tip of the blade towards Chanyeol, “If you just cooperate with me, you’ll be fine, I swear.” Chanyeol continued to stare at the man, no, the _boy_ because Chanyeol would recognize that voice anywhere. He’d spent hours of his classes listening to him and watching him from the background because Chanyeol simply could not take his mind off this boy when he was around, and sometimes even when he wasn’t. 

“Baekhyun?” he asked, even though he was 99% sure it was indeed The Byun Baekhyun. 

“Fuck!” Baekhyun muttered, “fuck fuck fuck-”

Chanyeol could not believe that his freaking crush was here and he did not understand what he was doing or know what he should do but Baekhyun looked stressed so Chanyeol decided that he would be a horrible person if he didn’t help. 

“Hey it’s ok, you can stay here for a bit. I’m not sure what’s going on but you can stay.”

Just then, they heard loud voices from outside and saw a beam of light aimed at the curtains. Baekhyun grabbed Chanyeol’s wrist and dragged him into the nearby coat closet. 

“Ah fuck, I should be outside!! Then they’d see my shadow and leave” Chanyeol said, but Baekhyun clamped a hand over his mouth and hissed at him to shut the fuck up. It was dark and uncomfortable, Chanyeol bent weirdly under the coats on one end of the closet because he was too big to be sharing this tiny space with Baekhyun, who’d somehow managed to burrow himself into whatever Jaemin’s parents kept on the closet’s floor. His knees were digging into Baekhyun’s chest, and it was probably painful for him but Chanyeol had no other place to put it. 

“You dumbass, they’d see your shadow and ask if they could search for me in the house.”

Oh. Baekhyun was probably right. The close proximity between them suddenly made Chanyeol feel very warm all over so he instead listened carefully to the sound of someone jiggling the front door knob.

“Yah Sehun, break it.” He heard a man say. Chanyeol’s heart rate picked up. Oh lord, they were going to break in and he was going to get killed, wasn’t he? Just when he thought he’d escaped death! 

“But I can't see anyone inside!” another man, most likely Sehun, whined. Then came a thump that sounded a lot like a whack to the back of the head (Chanyeol would know, his parents and friends did it to him all the time) and he heard Baekhyun giggle in the darkness. 

“They’re probably asleep! And knowing that bastard, he’s probably sneaked in and hiding in there so break it and we can find him.”

“Oh. Ok. You’re so smart, Hyung.”

“Yes, that’s why I’m the leader. Now hurry up!”

“Shit,” Chanyeol whispered, “shit, what do we do?” 

Chanyeol watched as a rectangular light popped up from across him, illuminating Baekhyun’s face. His phone. Baekhyun tapped various things before opening the closet door a bit and waiting. Chanyeol decided it would be best to be quiet. 

“Hyung, how many times do I have to tell you to step back?” Sehun complained.

“Right, right. Sorry.”

At this moment, Baekhyun tapped something else on his screen and slid his phone across the floor. Somehow it stopped just before the door, and the moment they heard a crunch that was probably the doorknob breaking, a loud alarm sound went off. 

They heard shouts of “WHAT THE FUCK THERE’S AN ALARM?” and “ABORT MISSION!!” and after another minute the alarm stopped and there was only silence.

The closet door was pushed open even further and Baekhyun crawled out, sprawling across the floor.

“I think I just used up all my luck for the next two years!”

All Chanyeol could do was laugh. The continues scares and panic had him feeling extremely awake and on edge, like he'd eaten six packs of gummy worms and chugged glucose. 

“What were you expecting when you broke into here?”

“Actually, Mr. and Ms.Na came over to my house yesterday. I overheard them talking with my parents about how they were going to hire a babysitter for Jaemin for the first time, so I knew they wouldn’t be here, which is nice because they would’ve told my parents and then I’d be in huge trouble.” Baekhyun said, smiling. 

“Speaking of Jaemin, I’m surprised he's still asleep. Wish I could sleep like that,” he added. Chanyeol noted that Baekhyun was as talkative as always. That’s good. That meant he was ok.

And then whatever had just happened began to really sink in and Chanyeol had _so_ many questions. 

“Right, um, what _are_ you doing out at midnight?”

He watched as Baekhyun twirled his knife with deft movements in his very pretty hands. And then he looked closer at the rest of him and he saw that the knees of Baekyun’s pants were stained and his shoes were tracking mud on the floor and there was a tear in his sleeve and a scratch on his arm and how did he not notice earlier that, “God, Baekhyun, you’re hurt, are you ok?!”

“Haha, yeah I was just going to ask for some bandaids,” Baekhyun winced, bending over to roll up his jeans and reveal some more scratches along his ankles. 

Chanyeol ran to the hallway bathroom where Jaemin’s parents had told him they kept the first aid kit. He swung the mirror to reveal the cabinet behind it and grabbed the spongebob band aids, bringing them back to where Baekhyun was sitting on the ground, leaning against the kitchen island. 

“Yeahhh, spongebob!” Baekhyun grinned, “That’s awesome, thanks man.”

He began putting them over the smaller scrapes and the particularly big scratch on his arm. Chanyeol internally laughed at himself for thinking Baekhyun was going to kill him earlier. Although, he had been really intimidating up until Chanyeol had known who he was. 

“You’re Chanyeol, right?”

Chanyeol made a noise of agreement. Then Baekhyun pouted.

“Please don’t tell anyone about this.”

Chanyeol nodded more aggressively because who was he to deny Baekhyun anything? No no wait the pouting had messed with his brain, Baekhyun was probably in trouble and if he was in trouble then Chanyeol had to know so that he could help.

“If you tell me what happened, I won’t tell anyone.” Chanyeol said, crossing his fingers behind his back, and thankfully Baekhyun didn’t notice because he simply sighed.

“My parents said they wouldn’t buy me Black Ops Cold War so it was either get a job and spend _hours_ slaving away just to buy it or I could put my sneaky lock picking genius skills to use and temporarily join a gang to do a quick job for quick bucks!!”

“Baekhyun, what the fuck?”

In response, he pulled a small plastic bag out of his hoodie pocket and untied it to reveal a wad of cash. “Lookie here! I can buy it tomorrow.”

Chanyeol couldn’t believe it. Except he kind of could, because this was such a Baekhyun thing to do. Even at school, and honestly in their whole town, Baekhyun’s reputation as a fun loving yet weirdly smart troublemaker and subsequent popularity due to his good looks preceded him. If anyone was going to do this kind of thing, it would be him. Meanwhile people like Chanyeol chose the former method of procuring funds for their self indulgent purchases.

“You know, I’m actually babysitting and slaving away for hours so I can make enough money to buy Cold War also, ‘cause my parents said no.”

“No way!! That’s crazy,” Baekhyun laughed. Chanyeol was pretty sure the only thing that was crazy here was Baekhyun.

“Why were those people trying to find you though?”

“Ah, that was Junmyeon and Sehun,” he stated, as if that would help Chanyeol, “and I walked in on them making out when I was going to say bye and they freaked out sooo bad. I told them I wasn’t going to tell anyone but they didn’t believe me because I couldn’t stop laughing so they said they had to kill me-”

“They had to KILL you?!” 

“Yes, Chanyeol. That’s how gangs work,” Baekhyun continued, a slightly manic glint in his eye, “But this is a small one so I didn’t expect I’d have to be killed. You see, they needed me to pick the lock of their weapon’s cellar ‘cause Jongin, that idiot, accidentally flushed the keys down the toilet and it’d take too long to make a new one. They have a job tomorrow and they needed stuff so it was the perfect time for me to walk in. Anyway, I could _feel_ the sexual tension between those two the whole time. So yeah, wasn’t surprised to see them all up against each other.” He lazily waved a hand, having finished his story.

Man, how was this guy real? Do other people really live like this? Recounting crazy adventures like they were normal occurrences??

“Mmm..thanks for listening by the way, you’re a good listener and I love talking. Like I was saying, they had to kill me which is why I ran all the way here.”

“And then you set up that alarm to make them think this house had a security system.”

“Indeed, my genius skills will get me far in life.’

“And your luck,” Chanyeol snorted, “That’s amazing.”

“Thank you, Chanyeol. I am most flattered. I’m going to try and sneak back into my room now so bye!!” 

“Are you sure it’s safe? You think they’ll leave you alone after this?”

Baekhyun paused for a moment, thinking. 

“I think they’ll realize they overreacted. Anyways, feel free to drop by my house and we can play Cold War anytime you want! That way you don’t have to keep babysitting and buy it yourself.”

Then he stood up, winked, blew Chanyeol a kiss, and walked out of the house just like that, leaving a blushing Chanyeol to mop up the mud and leaves Baekhyun had tracked all over the floor and sit in the living room, wondering what the hell had just happened and how he was going to explain the broken door knob to Jaemin’s parents when they would return in one hour. 

He pressed his hand to his chest and felt his heart still beating weirdly fast. So that was why he was having trouble breathing and thinking clearly. The couch felt firm and soft under him so he leaned his head over the back of it, letting the stupid goofy smile he’d been holding back spread over his face. He was definitely going to take up Baekhyun’s offer of dropping by tomorrow, so they could play, assuming he was still alive and didn’t get caught by his parents, of course. But knowing Byun Baekhyun, he was probably going to manage it. 

**Author's Note:**

> god knows what lie baek is gonna come up with to explain to his parents how he suddenly got the money lol, kid didn't think that far ahead. 
> 
> i should really get to my wips but i keep writing crap like this after i mess up on my tests :') if someone's here, thanks for reading!


End file.
